Ouch!

Note to self: do not set the laptop on sunburned thighs. It's not pleasant.

Today was my first official "day off" of the summer. Because, of course, you can't have a day off without a job to be off from. So what did I do with my time? Well, first I made banana bread, which turned out to be more than I had bargained for. We ran out of flour, so I had to make myself presentable and run to the store to get some so I could finish mixing it up. Also, the walnuts are a bit to prevalent in the mix, though I don't think my family really minds. The nuts weren't chopped and I didn't want to take the time to do that myself, so I put them in a plastic bag and smashed them with a hammer. Much faster, and much more fun. ;)

Hmm, what else? I painted my toenails for no apparent reason. They are now bright green with daisies on them. I may not do girlie things very often, but when I do, I do them right.

And then there's the sunburn. How did I get said sunburn? Oh, and it's all over my upper arms as well as my legs. I was lounging in the back yard reading a book. The first bad sunburn of the season. I should be okay from here on out, especially since I'll actually remember to wear sunscreen. This is how it always tends to go with me. The annoying part is that my skin seems unable to hold a tan, which makes me susceptable to burn again if I'm not careful. It's my Norwegian blood (well, skin really), it's meant for the frigid north, not South Dakota. But I don't intend to leave just because of that. I'll just resign myself to being pink for a few days.

And now for the book. Just what was I reading while my skin got scorched? Today I started John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. I had heard of the story of Christian before, in a radio theatre production, but I had never read it until now. I have to admit that I'm jealous of Christian. I sometimes wish that the Christian life were as straighforward as his journey. Just imagine it: when a person decides to follow Christ, they actually leave home and set off for a destination that is an actual geographical location. Certainly the road is hard and full of perils, but they are physical and obvious. Christian climbs mountains and fights the agents of darkness with a sword and a prayer on his way to the Celestial City. Now, that's not to say that'd I'd prefer to have my life in danger at all times, but there is something appealing about that sort of mission. Perhaps it's only my idealized Romantic imaginings, but I long for something that feels like a real adventure. For a quest. And I know that the Christian life IS an adventure and we do engage the Enemy through spiritual warfare every day. I guess it's just easier to get excited when swords are involved. But everyone feels it in some way. That's why LOTR was so popular, because all people long for adventure, for excitement, for something worth fighting for. But as Sam Gamgee said, in his infinite hobbit wisdom, we are all only part of the Great Story. Each of our lives help push it along, even if we feel like we are small and unimportant. Or just plain boring.

Well, that ended up defferently than I thought when I started it. I think I should go put my poor sunburned body to bed and let it heal. Someone stole my signoff, so I guess I'll have to think of something more original and less trite. (Wow, I get repetetively redundant when I'm tired.)

Go in peace. (Nah, too formal. Better luck next time.)
-Kim

I love my family...they're so silly :)

I am going to tell you a true story. The facts may not all be right, but the story is true. ;)

Today was family day. And if you know anything about my family (both immediate and extended), you know that that means a whole lot of laughter and silly banter. Grandma June came up from Sioux Falls and brought with her Uncle Doug and Aunt DoraLee, who were visiting from Minnesota. Actually, Doug is grandma’s little brother, so that makes him my great uncle. Today was his birthday, so we had a cake and drove around Brookings. Uncle Doug used to pastor the Presbyterian church here in town over 30 years ago, so they enjoyed seeing how much the town has changed.

The cake is worth mentioning. It came from Hy-Vee and had frosting to make it look like a baseball. (No reason for that, it’s just what they had. It also had lots of pretty sprinkles) Since we didn’t want to burn the house down, we got a little creative with the candles. I put a group of seven on one side, two on the other and a T in the middle. If you can figure out how old Uncle Doug is, you get a prize. ;)

I feel that I must tell you more about Uncle Dougie, because he’s just a hoot and a half. You should have seen (and heard) how crazy everyone was getting today! Well, Uncle Doug Throckmorton is my tallest relative. In his prime he was 6’6” (so my father assures me). I believe it. All of my memories of him include craning my neck upward to see his smiling face. He likes to joke that during his last growth spurt his head grew up through his hair. That should tell you something about his personality. For a better idea, just think of my dad. My dad learned his storytelling style and sense of humor from Uncle Doug. Or they both got it from the same place. It might just be hereditary. If so, watch out, because I seem to be getting more and more like my father as time goes by. ;)

And as I write this I am currently involved in one of the best Scrabble games of my life. I’ve had really good tiles. Of course, as soon as I typed that, I drew all vowels. But no matter, I will prevail! Can you tell I’m tired? Yeah, so I think that’s all I’ll say to you tonight.

God bless.
-Kim

Pineapple beware!

So today was my first day in the salad bar area. It went well in spite of my lack of sleep. I guess I was nervous or something, because I could not sleep last night for anything. I woke up at least three times before my alarm went off at 5:30. The best part of the morning was that my mom got up and made me eggs for breakfast. Having a good breakfast makes it so much easier to tackle new things. Thanks mom!

A girl named Mariah was training me in all the things I’ll have to do there. Since I work mostly mornings, I’ll always have to set up the salad bar itself. We got all of our foodstuffs out of the cooler (by which I mean huge walk-in cooler, almost freezer) in the back. It actually took quite a bit of time to get everything ready, like the soup, taco stuffs, and general salad-ness like lettuce and shredded cheese and random vegetables.

You know, this job has already taught me several new skills. For instance, today I learned how to cut up a pineapple. That had never been necessary information before, as I don’t especially like pineapple, though these smelled really good. And I was actually complimented on my watermelon slicing technique, I guess because the pieces I cut were cubelike. It’s not like there’s anything hard about cutting melon, so I thought it was funny. I mean, all you need to do is see how to change the thing from what it is to what it ought to be. With inanimate objects this is a fairly simple process.

I got distracted. I guess that's all for now.

God bless.
-Kim

Somewhat Extensive Ramblings

Well, this is probably going to be somewhat random. But you wouldn't really expect anything different from me would you? I didn't think so. You see, I have a bit of an issue with this whole blogging thing. As I go about my day I'll often have little moments when I realize, "hey, this would be cool to blog about!" It especially fun when I get a random thought that is halfway profound and could be developed into something that is actually worth sharing. But I almost never get the chance to put those thoughts right away onto paper or into the computer, usually because I'm out doing something when they occur to me. So then I get to the end of my day and attempt to write something and it falls apart because I'm tired and have forgotten half of what I was going to say. And so those posts that I actually get put up tend to be summations of my activities that have little of the real essence of my thoughts. So if in the future there is a stretch of days in which I do not post, do not fear for my wellbeing, I'm simply waiting until I have something worth saying.

Now, I do have some more news about my new job. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I'm going to be working in the salad bar area of the grocery store. Mostly it seems like my job will be preparing random fruit and vegetable items in the back room and stocking the salad bar itself. Yesterday I went in for orientation and got my nametag, apron and hat. Working i a fresh food department, I must wear either the hat or a hair net--I choose the hat. I'm also not allowed to wear jewelry, though the only part of that that is an inconvenience is that I won't know what time it is without my watch. I feel almost naked without a watch, so I may invest in a pocket watch of some sort. I also have to wear a tie, but that's not a problem because my dad has a lot of them; some are actually pretty cool looking too. Luckily, they also provided me with a white button shirt with the Hy-Vee logo on the sleeve. I need to wear a button shirt every day, and I'm not allowed to wear jeans, which meant that my mom and I went shoping last night.

It's a funny truth about shoping: the ammount of fun one has shopping is inversely propertional to the specificity of the item needed and the ammount of need. In smaller words, if you need to find a specific item, it's frustrating. Case in point: my mom and I take a shoping trip to Sioux Falls every year to celebrate the end of school. We went this past Monday and absolutely had a blast. Why? We had no objectives whatsoever. We simply wandered about and found what we found. We actually ended up buying rather frivolous items, including a skirt for me that is a gorgeous dark brown with blue and green tropical leaves patterned across it. Now, compare that to yesterday as we visited every store in town looking for solid colored button shirts and khaki pants. (Or, really, any shopping trip in which we try to find pants for me. But we won't go there today.) To spare you the horrific details, I'll shorten this part a bit. We spent two hours searching what stores Brookings has to offer only to come home and order things off the JCPenny online catalog. I also managed to find one of Kevin's old shirts from when he used to work in the Hy-Vee deli. So it's a really good thing they gave me a shirt to wear tomorrow.

Yes, you heard right, I start tomorrow. I even got up early this morning to practice for it. Because I have to start at 7:00 tomorrow morning. Which isn't so bad, I am more of a morning person after all. And on the plus side, I'll be done by 1:00 and have the rest of the day to myself. Besides, most of my friends here work nights and wouldn't be available (perhaps better words are "conscious" and "coherent") until later anyway. Besides, it's supposed to rain again on Saturday. Possibly with severe storms at some point. That should be fun. ;)

Hmm, I kind of like this whole writing a post in the middle of the day idea. Too bad I won't be able to keep it up once I start working. Most of my shifts next week are 8-4. But, at least it's hours. And hours mean money, which means going to Europe without depleting what money I have left to pay for later years of school. So I won't complain about it too much. After all, I should be focusing on my story, not silly little online ramblings. But don't worry, I'll always ramble from time to time. After all, this is the only contact I have with some of you this summer. Sadness.

Well, I guess it's time for me to be sensible and wrap this up and get some lunch. It's rather long already and I know you probably have better things to do with your time than read my extensive rambles. Go have fun this summer, eat your vegetables, get plenty of rest, avoid overexposure to the sun, read a good book, don't spend too much time playing video games, get outside and enjoy the wonderful world our God has created. And I think I'll stop with that. That list could have gone on forever had I not practiced some self-restraint. ;)

God bless.
-Kim

*Happy Dance*

Hallelujah, the Lord is good! Ask and ye shall receive! God answers prayer! And all that jazz. I have a summer job! Thanks so much to all of you who have been praying for me throughout this process. It definitely paid off. Let me tell you the story.

Yesterday I had an interview at Hy-Vee, the biggest grocery store in Brookings. Annette really seemed to like me and like my answers to her questions. She really wanted to hire me. Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of any job she had available for only the summer that she could offer me. So she said she’d ask around and let me know within the next couple of days. This, of course, left me doubting whether there was any hope of my being hired there. And since I hadn’t heard back from any of the other places, I was beginning to fear that I might have to suck it up and work at McDonald’s. Not a pleasant thought.

This brings us to this morning. I actually got up at a decent hour today and spent some time cleaning my room and trying to organize all the stuff I brought home from school. I was making a random trip through the kitchen, right past the phone, when the phone suddenly rang. It was Annette from Hy-Vee! She had found a job for me! I’m going to be working the salad bar, keeping it stocked and preparing the food that goes on it. It’s daytime hours, mostly on weekdays! I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I really couldn’t have. Tomorrow morning I go in for orientation and I’ll be getting hours by next week. Apparently the position just opened up and they need me pretty much right away. :D

And if we needed any further proof that this was a God thing, there’s the Dairy Queen aspect. They offered me a job last week with hours that sounded horrible. After taking some time to think about it, I decided that if it was what I could get, then I would take it. I even called them to accept the job, but the manager was too busy to talk and was going to call me back. But she never did. And it was later that day that Hy-Vee called to set up my interview. So it was like because I was willing to take a job that wasn’t what I wanted, God said “okay, now I can give you something better.” Or something like that. I’m not very good at explaining things.

So, again, I just need to thank all of you who have been praying for me and encouraging me through this. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go continue my happy dance.

God bless (and he will!)
-Kim